Trekhgornaya Manufacture, the location for “Deep Inside”. Image from Youngart.ru.
The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is one of this year’s largest and most ambitious projects in contemporary art. With Nadim Samman who curated The Antarctic Pavilion at the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture as the artistic director, and an array of emerging artists from across the globe, the Biennale is proving promising. The main project “Deep Inside” focuses on everyday out-of-body experiences which are enabled by avatars found in gaming worlds, social media, and the web 2.0. It aims to set the ever-increasing online presence against the challenges of climate change, global economies and social instabilities, which are too often overlooked. Located at the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura, “Deep Inside” features 87 works by 93 artists out of the 2000 plus applicants.
Hand-picked by Nadim Samman himself, these are the five artists to look out for at the Biennale.
“Intransitive” by Juliana Cerqueira Leite. Image from the artist’s website.
Juliana Cerqueira Leite (USA)
Leite believes her “daily movements are often duets choreographed by relationships with objects”. And through her installation “Intransitive” she demonstrates how her seamless interaction with these objects establish what she is, what she does, and where she exists.
“Wave” by Paul Rosero Contreras. Images from the artist’s website.
Paul Rosero Contreras (Ecuador — USA)
The Ecuadorian artist’s contribution for this Biennale is “Wave”, which explores mutualism and interspecies collaborations in the generation of ecosystems that are not natural and therefore post-humanist. The installation is composed by a 3D prototype of a sound wave made of silk from Bombyx mori silkworms, and incorporates sounds and visual elements to show the process in real-time.
Verena Friedrich (Germany)
“The Long Now” is an installation that uses the classic vanitas symbol — the soap bubble — in order to portray both fragility and stability in a controlled environment. Using the chemical and physical properties of the soap bubble, together with recent scientific and technological development the artist manages to give an eternal scope to this symbol of life’s ephemerality and fragility.
“Voznesenie (Ascension)” by Petr Davydtchenko. Images courtesy of the 5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
Petr Davydtchenko (Russia — Sweden — Great Britain)
“Voznesenie (Ascension)” is Petr Davydtchenko’s new video installation, which some reviews consider to be this Biennale’s best piece. The video installation is shown in one space but through numerous channels distributed horizontally, vertically and diagonally; making the man — surfacing from the thick residual waters — appear omnipresent.
Blunt x Skensved, “TeraTear” (single-channel video still), 360° 6-channel video with audio, 6m23s loop, 2016. Image courtesy of the artists.
Emmy Skensved & Gregoire Blunt (Canada—Germany / Canada—Germany)
For this edition of the Moscow Biennale, Blunt x Skensved have prepared an immersive installation right in the middle of the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura, which comprises a 19-meter-long cylindrical structure that provides the public with a 360-degree digital panorama. It showcases floating technological debris, which appears to have come from an explosion or collision but is then contradicted by the condition the artefacts appear to be in. The “mint condition” debris loops seamlessly in unison with a melancholic track to create the impression that it is an endless scenario filled with ambiguity and implications. And in the midst of it all it begs the question: is technology a cause for disaster?
The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art runs until 10 August 2016.